The present invention relates to an ashtray, storage compartment, or the like, particularly for automotive vehicles, having a stationary housing and a housing insert in the housing and which is spring urged in the opening direction and out of the housing, and having disengagable detent means for holding the housing insert in the closed position in the housing. The detent means can be actuated by pressing in on the front plate of the housing insert. The detent means has a cardioid shape control and guide curve which is developed as a slide groove on and which therefore moves with the housing insert. A pin which is arranged on an articulated lever at the side of the housing rests in an engagable manner in the cardioid curve slide groove.
Ashtrays of this type are known. They are enjoy increasing popularity due to their easy and simple use, i.e. they may be automatically tilted. In such ashtrays, as shown in Federal Republic of Germany OS 39 30 271, a two step directional lock, like that known from a ball point pen mechanism, is generally used as the detent means.
Conventional detent means have not always proven suitable in practical use and have given rise to objections. For instance, the housing insert frequently is not held in its closed position in the housing. From examinations and investigations of its function, it was recognized that the pin seated on the articulated lever does not reliably enter the correct branch of the control curve unless the articulated lever remains in a precisely predetermined position. Attempts to produce self locking in the region of the support of the articulated lever or to effect clamping of the lever against the housing by bosses on the articulated lever have not led to any lasting improvement in the operation.